A Hero's Welcome
by Trust No One
Summary: Movie verse - Hector’s POV as he rides into Troy after returning from Sparta and the guilt he feels at not having prevented Paris from bringing Helen along.


A Hero's Welcome

By Trust No One

Category: PG – General

Summary: Movie verse - Hector's POV as he rides into Troy after returning from Sparta and the guilt he feels at not having prevented Paris from bringing Helen along.

Disclaimer: Characters and places belong to Homer and Warner Bros. No copyright infringement intended.

The gates swing open and the cheer of the crowd erupts in thunderous resonance. A sound that has carried the glee of victory and has made me understand, so many times before, the true meaning of a hero's welcome. A sound that I would have embraced and relished any other day.

Except this day.

Through the rain of rose petals, I cast my glance about and see that the citizens are all wearing their finest attire, and I wave to them, forcing myself to keep the smile on my face.

What would they do if they knew? Would they roar in protest, would they wave their angered fists at me or would they simply stare at me in horrified silence? Citizens of Troy, I should tell them, I bring you not the peace you have hoped for, but the shadow of war and doom.

Yet for now, they celebrate and shower us with undisguised worship, singing their praises across the sky, for the princes of Troy have returned.

What kind of sight will stand before me the next time these gates open? Widows and orphans, not yet aware that their fathers and husbands and sons have fallen, the sounds of cheer long forgotten, to be replaced with the wailing of mourners and the smell of funeral pyres.

As we slowly ride through the streets of Troy, heading for the palace, I try to tell myself that maybe, just maybe, the spirit of this indomitable city will outlast the Greeks' hunger for power and possession. I know this city and its defences better than anyone and they can withstand an assault by the Greeks. But for how long?

Paris and Helen ride in the chariot ahead of me. Side by side, they hold hands and turn to gaze into each other's eyes, forgetting the world around them. My chest tightens with rage and I hope none of it is written on my face. For it is their sheer inability to think about the world that surrounds them, that has brought them here. I school my face into a smile again and I ponder the couple in front of me.

Throngs of Paris' former loves eye Helen with envious miens, others study her with more or less open hostility. Helen bows her head and I wonder if it is in shame. I have seen her face on the voyage home, too young and pretty to bear the signs of the guilt that no doubt racks her. She knows what it is she brings to her new home: no gift other than the promise of ruin. How I tried to hate her, back on the ship! When she revealed herself, such anger rose in me like I had never known before and I could have easily throttled her. I tried to despise and condemn my brother for his folly and for putting his interest above his country, his family and all else that matters.

Yet how could I point a finger at my wayward brother for falling in love with the most beautiful woman in the world, or fault her for returning his youthful fantasy?

Because I know who my brother is, I know him like the back of my hand and I should have reined him in while there was still time. I watched him climb the stairs to the Spartan queen's chambers night after night and I did nothing more than caution him lightly.

'Be careful, little brother, you are playing with fire,' I used to say half in jest. I don't know what madness possessed me. Maybe the knowledge that Paris soon tired of his conquests and that no affair of his ever lasted more than a few nights. Or the irrational hope that he was now grown up enough to know what he was doing.

He speaks of bonds and love. He has no idea… But now they are indeed bound to one another, more than by any marriage sealed before the gods.

Yet in the end, it was me who should have stepped in and put an end to the madness that unravelled before my very eyes. But I didn't. And I let it happen.

The cheer of the crowd is so loud; it almost drowns out my thoughts. They always lavished us with adoration. No foreign invader has ever set foot in this city of light and prosperity and the crowds know it. And they know how to show their appreciation.

They think that we have succeeded in our mission to make peace with the Greek warlords and keep their greedy eyes away from us. They don't know, the same way I didn't know when we set sail from Sparta, just over a week ago. I had never felt so liberated in my whole life. Watching the ship's prow carve the vast expanse of the sea, I remember thinking that the ship wasn't be fast enough, or the wind strong enough to bring us home as swiftly as my heart desired. Back then I didn't know that very ship carried with it the doom of our nation. I left Sparta as the husband and father who was entirely happy to put his warrior past behind him only to find out that the gods showed no such mercy.

What madness would drive us to think that we can change our destiny or that the past can be undone?

No matter what the outcome of this war, things will never be the same as they are now. For those who do survive will never be the same. This war that was blindly though unwillingly sparked in Helen's bedchamber would swallow us all, Trojans and Greeks alike. And the dreams I'd been having and have dismissed as nothing more than an overtired soldier's dread would come horribly true.

How can I look into my beloved Andromache's eyes and tell her that the peace and quiet that we have waited for our whole lives was there, within my grasp, only I let it slip through my fingers? In a second, I had doomed my wife and son to an uncertain future in a place that was once the glory of this earth but that soon enough will resound with the echoes of sorrow and loss.

When we reach the palace, my father is already waiting. He is wearing a smile that makes my heart twist in shame at what I know I have to tell him before long: that our mission has failed and that the peace he has striven for is now nothing but a distant dream; that because of my failure to thwart Paris' recklessness, Troy was quite possibly fated to long years of war and devastation.

We exchange greetings and he searches my face briefly, suddenly alerted to something he no doubt discovers behind my eyes. He knows me well and, though it is not my intention, I cannot fool him, even for an instant. It only takes a moment longer for him to greet Paris and lay his eyes on Helen. And somehow, in the flurry of blissful tumult that follows, he catches my eye.

And he knows.

We cannot win this war.

The End


End file.
